Tech Tools Improve Reading/Writing Skills
in the Language Arts Content Area
The relative advantage of technology in the language arts classroom goes beyond typing up stories and Google searching. There are benefits to tools ranging from word processing to skill-building games to blogging. The interactive and generative nature of many of these tools opens doors to new, creative possibilities. When students use digital technologies in language arts they are naturally becoming more literate in the sense that they are developing more literacies. Technology aids in the development of digital literacy (using technological devices and their information) as well as information literacy (locating, evaluating, and using information (e.g. research)) (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p.267-8). Refining these literacies requires critical thinking in conjunction with lots of experience. In these experiences and instructional strategies lie the relative advantages of a technology-infused language arts classroom. “Used strategically, technology tools can support individualized needs while supporting instruction of a shared, core curriculum” (CITEd, 2010).
Benefits for Students
First and foremost, students working with technology in the language arts area have a greater sense of purpose for their reading and writing, which stems from a more collaborative approach to these skills. Social interaction, whether conducted online or face-to-face working collaboratively on a shared document, provide opportunities for peer teaching and cooperative team-building skills. It’s very easy to comment on others’ work on blogs and websites. Thinking critically about text (i.e. analyzing, evaluating) can extend beyond the classroom walls and school hours. These interactions bring fresh, relevant student-centered conversations into the writing arena. Learners feel part of a community where their work is recognized and appreciated, and where their learning products aren’t just produced in isolation.
In addition to offering a “local” sense of collaboration, students can also communicate globally and gain feedback from a wider audience. For example, students in different schools working on a poetry unit could create a joint-effort ebook, working synchronously and with the same file. They could then post it publicly on the internet for others’ to view and comment. In general, by working with multiple contexts and media students can not only share classwork, but they can also correspond more casually through email (e.g. as virtual penpals). This helps foment both academic and the socially multicultural relationships.
Technology in the language arts classroom is also helpful for skill building and practice. There exist many programs and applications that serve to target specific skills such as word fluency, vocabulary development, comprehension, and literacy development (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p. 272). Intervention and assessment options available through speech recognition technology monitor students’ reading fluency and offer suggestions. Even with with less sophisticated reinforcement activities, animated, colorful, and entertainingly dynamic games (such as matching phonemes or vocabulary words) are motivational as well as self-diagnostic. Students received immediate feedback. These kinds of programs exist as websites and apps, and are often free of charge. They are typically image-rich, scaffolding the instruction and allowing students to make strong connections to background knowledge. They also combine multiple modalities—such as visual, kinesthetic, auditory, and musical, further reinforcing synaptic connections.
With technology, students are more willing and motivated to read for pleasure (or at least take pleasure in assigned reading). They have an improved connection to text. For example, ebooks allow learners to personalize the appearance, take and record notes, highlight passages, and listen to text read to them. Technologies also aid in the improvement of reading comprehension. Interactive stories include hypermedia and “clickable” features that not only increase engagement but also understanding. Audio features, dictionary access, and translation options offer additional support when a teacher is not readily available, or as students are learning to become more independent. They can work at their own level and pace, which helps in terms of differentiated instruction.
Not only are students able to consume helpful literacy-focused technologies, but they are able to create them as well. Students can engage in digital storytelling through the combination of images and audio, which enriches their narratives and turns students into directors of multimedia mini-productions. They take pride in their work, which looks polished and professional without tremendous artistic or design efforts. Even if students are only seeking to create a simple written document, word processing technologies allow students to easily make changes to their drafts. In this way, drafting becomes a more fluid process (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p. 278). Grammar and spell check also support learners in the technical accuracy of their compositions. These types of features reduce the cognitive load, making word processing to be more efficient way to compose an essay or story.
Benefits for Teachers
A teacher can introduce technology tools to increase students’ motivation to read and write through interactive, media-rich content. This not only increases their desire, but also improves the quality of their products. They feel more connected to and accountable for their work. It is also motivating in that students have authentic publication options, which inspire increased pride, creativity, and attention to detail.
Technology also helps individualize education in a way that accommodates and builds on the skills of ELL students, and students with reading difficulties due to lack of an early years literacy foundation or ongoing appropriate instruction, a literacy-impoverished home life, or attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p. 270). It can also help students with reading or writing disabilities, such as dyslexia or dysgraphia. Suggested applications for overcoming some of these traditional “barriers” can be found here: http://www.learningpt.org/pdfs/literacy/disability.pdf in the article by Thompson, Bakken, Fulk, and Peterson-Karlan.
The use of technology is also valuable as an analytic tool. If using reading assessment software, teachers can use the computer-generated data to see a student’s reading rate, which words they struggled with, which types of comprehension proved most challenging, etc. Teachers can easily find patterns and use this collected data to inform classroom instruction (Allen 2008).
Various technologies make the process of teaching writing skills more efficient and organized. Teachers can introduce and model the use of concept maps and word webs to brainstorm fiction elements (characters, setting, plot, etc.) or nonfiction elements (main ideas, subtopics, and related facts). In many app or software options these maps can include images and color-coding to visually organize students’ thoughts. There are websites that offer story starters and idea generators to escape “writer’s block”. Teachers can also demonstrate how to draft a research paper by using electronic outlining (as one could find embedded in Microsoft Word, for example) to write a hierarchy of headings and subheadings, which are easily editable as the student refines the scope and detail of the topic.
Sharing models is a valuable scaffolding tool, and the use of technology offers many relative advantages to that end. There are a number of resources on the internet that provide opportunities to access model writing. Students can peruse various genres of writing samples to get a sense of what is expected for assignments. Teachers can also model the process of revision or editing on an interactive whiteboard, pointing out areas that can be reworded, reordered, or corrected. She can also aid the revision process by adding comments or “tracking changes” in a student’s digital writing piece.
In general, technology is at home in any language arts classroom. Improving general literacy by boosting digital and technological literacies motivates learners and makes them well-rounded participants in their education. It also ensures they are meeting 21st century learner objectives.
Please view my example of technology integration in the language arts classroom that uses eBooks to generate non-fiction and narrative text.
References
Allen, R. (2008). Leveraging technology to improve literacy. ASCD Education Update, 50(10). Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/oct08/vol50/num10/Leveraging-Technology-to-Improve-Literacy.aspx
CITEd. (2010). Adolescent literacy: What's technology got to do with it? Retrieved from http://www.adlit.org/article/35792
Roblyer, M. D. & Doering, A. H. (2013). Integrating educational technology into teaching. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson
Thompson, Bakken, Fulk, and Peterson-Karlan. (2004). Using technology to improve the literacy skills of students with disabilities. Retrieved from http://www.learningpt.org/pdfs/literacy/disability.pdf
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